Hi beesbeesbees I too like to see the facts in support of a theory. I tend to research everything to death until I feel satisfied with the answers. Just my nature. :) Like Cindi said there is nothing wrong with agreeing to disagree. Debate is healthy.

Nobody is ever going to find the cause and cure of this tragic problem if we dont ask questions and propose theories.

It seems like the biggest problem here is that there is not much to go on. Lots of empty hives but not many clues. Or perhaps clues we havn't discovered yet..

I am not an alarmist, but it would not suprise me if GMO's are the cause.

I dont really know enough about this subject to discuss it, CCD.

I do know that GMO's ARE scary. Various research I have read on them has not been encouraging. I can not remember my source of information but I remember reading about a study done on GMO tomatos. I think it was done by Cornell University, but I'm not sure. In the study they fed GMO tomatos to rats. Rats love tomatos. This I can attest to, I have seen a rat bypass a dish of dog food to steal a tomato from my garden instead. (hey, I live in a city I do occasionally see out door rats) Anyway, in the study even though rats love tomatos they would not eat the GMO ones. So the scientists force fed the rats the tomatos. Like 7 out of 10 rats developed ulcers and 3 out of 10 died. Im not swearing by my figures but it is something like that. AND the USDA still deamed the tomatos OK for human consumption. :-x In another study crows and raccoons would not eat GMO corn. So what do Mother Natures other creatures know that we dont?

Perhaps the Bees know this as well. Perhaps they wouldnt eat the corn syrup mixture because either the pollen or the syrup was GMO. Its as good a theory as any so far.

Hmmmm...if they starved to death though wouldnt there be more dead bees? If a winter starved hive dies, don't you find the remaining cluster of bees dead? :'( If there are not many dead bees then it seems like they must have gone somewhere. Unless they left in search of food and died elsewhere.

Sorry, just trying to think out loud. Not trying to be offensive or a know it all, just trying to understand it. :(

BEH,I'm hip. I'm all on board with a discussion of GMO's though my experience is primarily with Roundup ready crops. Though I haven't driven a tractor in the field in 10 years other than to put up alfalfa hay with dad (in front of my apiary) I make it a point to keep tabs on what my neighbors are doing. Right now they are tending toward 3 applications of Roundup to kill ALL annual weeds. They rotate corn/beans and farm to the very edges of the fields. There are no fencerows anymore (where I live in Illinois) because livestock are only kept for a hobby. Now, if we kill all the weeds to keep our fields clean year round for a 4-6 month monoculture where are my bees (and let's not overlook the wild birds) going to forage?

That's my argument against GMO. We are sponsoring irresponsible land husbandry with $5 corn and ethanol will only make it worse. I don't have any GMO data on abnormal growths in animal trials.

Does anybody remember the hype that frogs got 10 years ago? Frogs were found with developmental abnormalities and nothing else made the news for a while. I researched this subject at an undergraduate level for several years, presented at an international meeting, listened to and read TONS of funded, graduate-level research on the subject and came away without any real answers. From all that I came away with two realistic possibilities:Either it always happens at about the same rate and we were just finding them more frequently (like polydactyly, it just happens sometimes)OR something released low dosages of a vitamin-A like compound. Maybe an introduced plant, common agricultural chemical, McDonalds packaging??? Vitamin-A has been shown to cause wild developmental issues during the development stage (see thalidomide). To my knowledge (Please show me I'm wrong) no definitive cause of frog malformation was found and the news eventually got stale.

Frogs sold copy better than they funded research. I'm happy to have news about CCD out there but in the time since we have named this phenomonon we haven't gained any ground. It looks like the frog thing all over again. Are we using dead bees to sell copy? We must demand real research. Not opinion-driven publications from university professors who MUST publish or lose tenure (are eggs good or bad for us?). Not fear-inspiring articles in local newspapers about a future of humans using q-tips to pollinate the almond trees (Stl Post Dispatch). Real, honest research. I don't know how to fund it. I don't know how to participate at my scale. But I'm sure if we put our heads together we can do better. And along the way we may find out how bad corn syrup is and stop drinking so much Coke.

IMHO, we're going to find a mixture of causes to CCD and no clear smoking gun. GMOs, pesticides, miticides, virises, interstate trasnport of bee hives for pollination, etc., are all going to end up playing a part with several possible senarioes resulting in CCD type decline. It is all going to go back to BMP and less migratory beekeeping. More regional and less national, West coast bees to California, east coast bees to Florida, etc.

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Life is a school. What have you learned? :brian: The greatest danger to our society is apathy, vote in every election!

Information!Ã‚ Best regards, Harald Singer.Ã‚ Ã‚ 1.13.2008 12:13PM4 Reasons Pesticides are Bad for BeesBeekeepers: PoisonsMay Not Cause Colony Collapse Disorder, But They ContributeÃ‚ Ã‚ By KimFlottumÃ‚ TheBeekeeper reports from the first ever National Beekeeping Conference:Now,what everyone has been waiting for ... beekeepers telling beekeepers about theirpersonal experiences with Colony collapse Disorder (CCD). But wait! ThereÃ¢â‚¬â„¢smore here than just a mystery. ThereÃ¢â‚¬â„¢s pesticides aplenty here, and even iftheyarenÃ¢â‚¬â„¢t the CCD curse, they are killing bees faster than beekeepers can makethem.Chemical Companies Approve Their Own Pesticides David Mendes, aMassachusetts/Florida beekeeper with 7,000 colonies, talked about pesticides intheenvironments his bees must visit when pollinating crops and how these chemicalsmaybe contributing to his problems ... and his problems are significant this year,as they were last year. His first comment was that pesticides arenÃ¢â‚¬â„¢t testedby the EPA, nope. Pesticides are tested by the Chemical companies that makethem, and then the EPA approves them for use, or not. Any guesses on how thoseresults come out?He talked about not only the financial but emotional stressloosing 60 Ã¢â‚¬â€œ 80% of your bees has on beekeepers ... anything more than 50% inayear and it gets real, real hard to recover. Two years in a row and you couldbe looking for a job as a greeter at Wal-Mart. WhatÃ¢â‚¬â„¢s different now, he asks... And why me?"Big Ag," with Chemical Henchmen, Control the USDA David Hackenburg, thefirst to report Colony Collapse Disorder (but not the first to watch it runthrough his hives, certainly), first told about the 2,000 or so colonies he hadmoved to Florida last week. This week, 80% were gone ... again. Gone with thesamesymptoms of CCD he saw in his bees last year. He quoted Jerry Hayes, theState Apiary Inspector from Florida (where CCD is common) who said that Ã¢â‚¬Å“beekeeping was the ugly step-child of American agricultureÃ¢â‚¬Â. How so? Thegovernment hasmade lots of promises about studying and fixing the CCD problem so far,Hackenburg said ... but so far not much has happened. He said he hasnÃ¢â‚¬â„¢t beentoohappy with Australian bees so far Ã¢â‚¬â€œ not saying anything about theirimplicationin CCD (one disputed study suggested an Australian virus is connected to hivesaffected by CCD). He also mentioned pesticides, specifically Imadacloprid(banned in France, but not here), and how it was used everywhere, by everybody.But he went on, and I quote ... Ã¢â‚¬ÂBig Ag has control of the USDA from theSecretary right on down to almost the lowest guys on the totem pole.Ã¢â‚¬Â What todo?Get a hold of your congress folks and get them to take some action ... get themoney out, get control of the chemicals."Stacking" Makes Poisoning More Potent Dave Ellingson, another commercialbeekeeper and beeswax processor talked about doing everything the way he hadbeendoing things ... and nothing was working. It used to be, when a colony dies,you air it out and reuse it. Now, that new colony will die too. His pesticidecomment was that farmers are now "stacking" pesticides. That is, they arecombining insecticides, herbicides and fungicides in a single trip across thefield instead of taking three separate trips. The problem? When combined, thesechemical blends become a thousand times more toxic than when used alone. Athousand times more toxic. Imagine.Fungicides: The Breakfast of Champions? Gene Brandi, a commercial beekeeperwith 2,000 colonies, talked about one specific pesticide problem: Sprayingfungicides on blooming plants. Generally these compounds arenÃ¢â‚¬â„¢t harmful tohoneybees ... adult honey bees that is, which is all the EPA makes the chemicalcompanies consider when they test new pesticides (remember who does the tests,andwho approves the results). Meanwhile, these non-adult-harming compounds thatare brought back to the hive are being fed to baby bees. Would you feedfungicides to your babies? No? Neither would I. But we are routinely lettinghoneybees do just that. These chemicals come back to hives on the pollen the beescollect, then store, then feed to their children. Yummmm.Pesticides arenÃ¢â‚¬â„¢t thecause of Colony Collapse Disorder. Beekeepers and scientists know this. But thestress that constant exposure to pesticides exerts on the honey beepopulation, and the strain this stress puts on a honey beeÃ¢â‚¬â„¢s immune system isjust oneof many links in the CCD chain. The problem is obvious. The solution is too.http://www.thedailygreen.com/environmental-news/blogs/bees/colony-collapse-disorder-66011301

i have some issues with stuff that comes from Flottum. he's gone off on enough political and environmental tangents that i stopped reading.

since we know that there have been die offs in the past, long before gmo's, and that there are places experiencing this that do not allow gmo's, i would put this at the bottom of the list of possible contributing factors. not to say it has no impact, but probably not the cause. poor nutrition and stress allowing for the development of diseases...old or new, seems a much more likely cause. if pollination hives are breeding grounds for disease, then they would surly be able to spread that disease to our backyard hives. any stress in our hives could allow the disease to flourish.

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.....The greatest changes occur in their country without their cooperation. They are not even aware of precisely what has taken place. They suspect it; they have heard of the event by chance. More than that, they are unconcerned with the fortunes of their village, the safety of their streets, the fate of their church and its vestry. They think that such things have nothing to do with them, that they belong to a powerful stranger called the government. They enjoy these goods as tenants, without a sense of ownership, and never give a thought to how they might be improved.....

I agree,Kathyp.With all the diseases and pest all ready working in the hive, the least little "NEW"thing that comes up, the Bees have to adjust.Like I said in another post, no farming around here. I don't move my bees. So what gives. I know 5 out of the 7 hives I lost last year was due to something new.WHAT?No robbing of left over honey, no wax moth's.But I have noticed something else. Most of my losses are coming from newly re queened colonies.The colonies I have that came out of the wild and get queens fair much better.That's where I'm going.

he has expressed other opinions about stuff. opinions are fine. radical ravings are not. at least not radical ravings that have nothing to do with the subject of the magazine in which you are raving. makes me wonder what he got to sniffing in his older age.

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.....The greatest changes occur in their country without their cooperation. They are not even aware of precisely what has taken place. They suspect it; they have heard of the event by chance. More than that, they are unconcerned with the fortunes of their village, the safety of their streets, the fate of their church and its vestry. They think that such things have nothing to do with them, that they belong to a powerful stranger called the government. They enjoy these goods as tenants, without a sense of ownership, and never give a thought to how they might be improved.....

I saw this last fall in our church parking lot where someone stopped to double check their load and spilled a bunch of corn. They left and I figured what the hey I'll put some in a feeder for the tree rats and some for the birds. None was touched. The corn in the parking lot was run over and ground down and washed away in the rains. What was in my yard rotted and washed away. Now whether it was GMO corn, I do not know, but I have never seen critters not devour free corn.

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Everyone said it couldn't be done. But he with a chuckle replied, "I won't be one to say it is so, until I give it a try." So he buckled right in with a trace of a grin. If he had a worry he hid it and he started to sing as he tackled that thing that couldn't be done, and he did it. (unknown)

"The results of so many BAD, SAD bees the last few years has been a lot of SAD beekeepers looking for a quick fix to a very complex problem, KEEPING HEALTHY productive bees. I do not think the answer will necessarily be through modern chemistry, and I am certain it will not be by government decree, that: 'ALL BEES WILL BE HEALTHY OR DEAD.'"

I also liked what Purvis Brothers site has to say on the topic. (Again indicating that this is nothing new)

I saw this interesting documentory called " the world according to monsanto" its on google video... Very interesting vid..I notice that organic beekeepers are not being affected... and hives that are being fed GMO corn syrup and taken to gmo crops are the ones suffering(the large commercials ops) back in 1990 32 people died eating monsanto products..and 1000 people were seriously injured\sick this is the company that's behind most GMO products today...now allot the characteristics of the bee's suffering from CCD are expereincing what some lab rats expereinced in a lab test a little while back(stomach lining gone and multiple viruses and parasites indicating there immune system and gut has been compromised.) Is organic beekeeping the way to go to avoid this horrible fate? it seems that way as again you can ask around organic beekeepers are not being affected.. fruit Bats are now suffering from a form of CCD as well... they are leaving there caves during winter time and dying from the SAME characterisitcs as the Bees and the lab rats... go figure.. Monsanto has lots of $$ and I am sure they will fund research that will be impartial and conflicting.. we need to use common sense, look at the history of the company, and in the end your gut feeling as to what the hell is going on. and make changes to what you feed and give your bees.. and if possible avoid GMO crops or raise prices on GMO due to the added risk of losing hives due to GMO.. I know that's probaly impossible right now.. but as more research comes out to support that hypothesis.. you will have the ammunition to do so.

They also reported poisoning in several other apiaries of professional beekeepers in the affected lodigiano - with removal by veterinarians of official samples by the local ASL; Incoming are also reports from the countryside surrounding the city of Varese.

The hives in the above table refer to the "official" reports, sent to the SLA Services Veterinarians territorially. For each officially reported incidence of "poisoning bee-field experience" it is said that records show that there are at least ten other incidents not declared. Almost all the "bee-death" occurred in close and with obvious connection with the use of seed corn with neonicotenoidi tanned and distributed with air seeders. In some cases the responsibility seems to be attributed to herbicides. In several cases the samples Veterinarians have collected, "official" death of bee is attributed to molecules responsible dell'apicidio. We must report, unfortunately, that in some cases, by the Veterinary Services of ASL, there is serious lack of cooperation, because faced with such a serious and widespread phenomenon - their main concern seems to be: "Who will pay for the analysis?". We denounce this shameful attitude that reveals all the obtuseness of those who precede the direct damage suffered by companies apistiche and that, even more serious blow could be felt by all of us, born from, "the financial unsustainability" is a proposal which marks each test at cost - Euro 51 - 65 (CRA prices www.inapicoltura.org-API). In the absence of adequate safeguards many beekeepers have already abandoned the area with their hives. Other bee operators in the areas at risk - plus many others, are now preparing to do so.

And how useful will it be for someone in those areas - without a Po Valley bees?

The next bulletin, with updates on new poisoning, will be issued, I fear - within one week.

I reckon its all down to Varoa. They have searched for everything else. Sometimes the answer is too simple for some Scientists to believe.

Could be, but I don't think they have investigated every other possibility. When the AIDS virus first appeared and humans started dieing, it took a while for thousands of scientists and doctors to figure it out. For bees, there are few dollars and few scientists.

I noticed that no one has mentioned that on May 15th, 2008, Germany suspended the licensing of seed-coating and use of clothianidin and seed-coating with imidacloprid which are two of the most highly toxic neonicotinoids to honey bees. 60% fo the bees died in one week in Southwestern Germany and the government research found 90% of the dead bees had clothianidin in their bodies. This same pattern of bee dieoff occurred in Alsace, France, Italy, Switzerland and other countries where corn was seed coated and then more clothianidin was sprayed on the crop. This is stunning news for beekeepers and dramatic swift action for German officials because Bayer Crop Science which owns all rights to neonicotinoids and fipronil is located in Germany.

I forgot to mention in my last post that in France in 1999, as you know, Gaucho, one neonicotinoid product, was banned for use on sunflower crops and only for use on sunflower crops. It continued to be used on many other crops. The French beekeepers called the disappearance of their bees, "Mad Bee Disease" which occurred first and only with the bees that foraged on the initial crops that had seeds coated with Gaucho. Yes, seeds and not massive spraying! Penn State entomologists renamed the phenomena, colony collapse disorder. Although in Europe it has been proven that neonicotinoids are responsible for massive bee losses, I have been unable to find adequate research here in the USA proving the same result. You might check on my Youtube video disappearance of the bees, if you want to know more about the dangers of neonicotinoids to honey bees and all pollinators.